Bang on a Can All-Stars Return to Japan Society with RIMPA REIMAGINED, 12/8

The 2012-2013 season sees Bang on a Can performing throughout the United States and around the world featuring an extensive selection of brand new musical adventures alongside a recommitment to acclaimed projects from past years. Bang on a Can performs regularly this season in its hometown of New York, and travels worldwide to cities including Los Angeles, London, Krakow, Toronto, and in many other places throughout the U.S. and internationally. (See schedule at the end of this release.)

In addition to performing at Japan Society, highlights for this season include the Bang on a Can All-Stars joining forces with Norwegian superstars Trio Mediaeval for a European tour of Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer as well as for the world premiere recording of the work, to be released on Bang on a Can’s sister-label Cantaloupe Music; a tour of Australia including performances at the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Recital Centre; plus collaborations with an increasing and eclectic range of composers, visual, and sound artists in the continued creation of Field Recordings.

Bang on a Can is dedicated to making music new. Since its first Marathon concert in 1987, Bang on a Can has been creating an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found. With adventurous programs, it commissions new composers, performs, presents, and records new work, develops new audiences, and educates the musicians of the future. Bang on a Can is building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders. Bang on a Can plays “a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn’t concern itself with boundaries. If music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come.” (The New York Times)

Bang on a Can celebrated 25 years during the 2011-2012 season, having grown from a one-day New York-based Marathon concert (on Mother’s Day in 1987 in a SoHo art gallery) to a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities. “When we started Bang on a Can in 1987, in an art gallery in SoHo, we never imagined that our one-day, 12-hour marathon festival of mostly unknown music would morph into a giant international organization dedicated to the support of experimental music, wherever we would find it,” write Bang on a Can Co-Founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. “But it has, and we are so gratified to be still hard at work, all these years later. The reason is really clear to us – we started this organization because we believed that making new music is a utopian act—that people needed to hear this music and they needed to hear it presented in the most persuasive way, with the best players, with the best programs, for the best listeners, in the best context. Our commitment to changing the environment for this music has kept us busy and growing for the last 25 years, and we are not done yet.”

Current projects include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People's Commissioning Fund, a membership program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world every year; recording projects; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival - a professional development program for young composers and performers led by today’s pioneers of experimental music; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can’s extreme street band that offers mobile performances re-contextualizing unusual music; Found Sound Nation, a new technology-based musical outreach program now partnering with the State Department of the United States of America to create Onebeat, a revolutionary, post-political residency program that uses music to bridge the gulf between young American musicians and young musicians from developing countries; cross-disciplinary collaborations and projects with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, filmmakers and more. Each new program has evolved to answer specific challenges faced by today’s musicians, composers and audiences, in order to make innovative music widely accessible and wildly received. Bang on a Can’s inventive and aggressive approach to programming and presentation has created a large and vibrant international audience made up of people of all ages who are rediscovering the value of contemporary music.

Founded in 1907, Japan Society is a world-class, multidisciplinary hub for both English and Japanese-speaking artists and audiences. Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has produced more than 600 showings of Japan's finest performing arts to an extensive American audience in and out of New York City. Program topics range from the traditional to the avant-garde. Japan Society commissions new works, administrates national tours, organizes residency programs for American and Japanese artists and develops and distributes educational programs. The Society is responsible for hosting more than 100 events each year. An American nonprofit, nonpolitical organization, the Society's overarching goal is to cultivate a constructive, resonant and dynamic relationship between the people of the U.S. and Japan.

Since the inception of the Performing Arts Program in 1953, Japan Society has introduced more than 600 of Japan's finest performing arts to an extensive American audience. Programs range from the traditional arts of noh, kyogen, bunraku and kabuki to cutting-Edge Theater, dance and music. The Program also commissions new works to non-Japanese artists, produces national tours, organizes residency programs for American and Japanese artists and develops and distributes educational programs.